


deep breath, deep breath

by thethrillof



Category: Secret of Kells (2009)
Genre: Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-05 17:32:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 10,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethrillof/pseuds/thethrillof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Prompts from tumblr user goodbyenorthernlights.</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_**Beginning** _

The faerie-doe watches a tall man with long red hair maneuver his horse carefully through the trees, holding a bundle with blood running down his face. She cantered alongside him, carefully noting where he was going: the tiny village of humans that she allowed to live in the deep of her forest.

He smelled of fear and anger. Whenever he looked at the thing in his hands the fear-smell strengthened and the anger-scent faded.

It writhed and she darted further away before she embarrassedly realized that it was only a baby.

Neither seemed dangerous. Aisling would leave them alone.

_**Middle** _

The faerie-girl stood in front of the red-haired boy who so foolishly wandered into her domain. "What're you doing in my forest?"

She watches him stumble over vines as well as through his words. He starts off frightened and wanders towards 'irritated' when she doesn't immediately do what he wants, but she can ignore it. He seems interesting enough.

(and she's been alone for so long that see can look over just about anything for want of some company)

Brendan's voice fades in, exclaiming over her abilities _("Miracles!")_ , awed at her strength.

Yes, he'd make a very fine friend indeed.

_**End** _

The faerie-wolf observed the white-robed man that radiated an aura of joy.

She wouldn't have recognized him (the tearful boy that was running through the cold, the boy who lost nearly everything like she once had-) if not for the distinctive hair and white cat balanced on his shoulder.

He had changed so much…

But it didn't matter.

She was just a ghost in the trees; he was just a ghost of the past.

They were different. Even an ageless faerie could change in two decades, and a human definitely did.

But they could start again.

(And they would.)


	2. colors (1)

**white**

Snow.

Brendan had never seen her in the snow, not in her human form.

She'd have definitely enjoyed using her natural paleness to pop up and startle him (as if that was a challenge during any other season). They would have tossed clumps of it into each others' hair and laughed until they cried.

Aisling would have probably leapt from branch to branch above his head, burying him under it. Then he would've chased her and he never could have caught her, though she might have let him if she felt like being nice.

As he raced through the endless white with Aidan beside him, all he could try to do was think about what-could-have-been to give him comfort.

**red**

Aisling was staring at him inquisitively, perched on a branch above him.

She was prone to staring at the slightest thing that he did, but never for so long. He wasn't doing anything particularly interesting or attention-grabbing, just leaning against the trunk of a tree.

"What?"

She blinked. "Huh?"

"Why are you staring at me like that? Did I get ink on my face?"

"No." She swung down. "I wasn't staring at you, just your hair." And apparently was all she felt like explaining at that moment, because she scrambled back up the trunk and vanished into the leaves.

He shoved off the tree. "Wait, what? Why?" he called after her loudly.

She jumped out a few feet to the left a minute later, an apple clutched between her hands. She held it next to his head. "Hmm…no." Dropping it into his hands, she vanished again.

He was stuck standing for another few minutes until she reappeared, somehow holding an orb of water with a reddish-gold fish that he'd never seen. "…Closer," she commented "but too shiny."

She stared at him again, head tilted.

Abruptly she turned and let out an echoing cry. A fox darted from the underbrush. "Aha! I knew I'd seen something almost…like…argh!" she exclaimed, shooing the fox away.

"Brendan, your hair is too  _red_!"

**blue**

Brendan sat on a large stone, lazily watching Pangur bat at her reflection in the river. He'd been helping this uncle with the wall a lot and didn't have energy to run around, much to Aisling's displeasure. She was standing ankle-deep in the river, grey shoes off to the side.

They'd been resting there for an hour or so, just listening to the rushing water and leaves rustling. He kept falling asleep and nearly sliding into the water.

"Maybe you should be going back," Aisling spoke up suddenly. "The sun is going down. What if the Abbot notices that you're gone?"

"That wouldn't be good," he agreed. But somehow he didn't feel like moving.

But the sky  _was_  getting darker…and the moon was brightly shining high above them and the water wasn't blue but black

And they were running and the bright blue moon was gazing upon them and the forest was twisting around them and Aisling--Aisling was far behind and he couldn't turn back and no no no no the water was taking her and—

" _Aisling!"_

He woke up on the floor of his room, tangled in the sheets.

The sun wasn't up, but it didn't matter. He got dressed anyway and gone in a heartbeat, off to make sure she was alright.


	3. time is

**1.**

Aidan was old.

He didn't  _feel_  old - his heart and mind were as young as it was when his parents' boat sank near Iona when he was a boy. But he and his body didn't quite agree.

First, it was hard to see the patterns he was creating. He held his mentor's crystal as close to his eye as possible, but the colors and lines kept blurring, except when he was concentrating hard enough to develop a headache.

Second and worse…he would always remember the first time his hand shook while he sketched out a line.  _Just a product of exhaustion_ , he thought at first. But then it happened again. And again. And again, no matter how much he rested or tried. It was only the thinner, smaller ones originally, but it only got worse.

It was unpleasant, but he knew what was happening. He was no fool. Time had already taken Columcille—and time was going to take him too.

It didn't take long for him to accept it, and his newest apprentice would carry his legacy well. But sometimes he found himself losing his smile as he watched Brendan's quill fly across the parchment. Not because Brendan possessed even more talent than what he once had, no; because Brendan would age one day, too.

And Aidan didn't want the boy to experience what it was like to lose the largest, most beautiful part of his life.

**2.**

Saying that faeries were forever young wasn't true, but they did age incredibly slowly. Take Aisling, for instance.

Brendan didn't believe her when she told him that she remembered a time before Kells. After all, it had been there since before the Abbot. "No-one as small as you could be older than him!"

She thought about arguing with him for a bit, then dismissed it as boring and went off to grow more of her snowdrops. And that was the end of her thoughts of time.

At least until Crom Cruach tore so much energy out of her that she couldn't crawl away or even shift forms until Brendan destroyed him. She could only flee after, destroying the statue that had pinned her down.

Aisling knew, deep in her gut, that much of her life had been lost with Crom.

After that, though, she kept her mind off it. She had to get used to traveling on all fours and not darting up trees. One day, she would be strong enough to shift back into her proper form, but until then, running would have to make do.

And then the Vikings attacked, and Brendan…Brendan was gone.

Eighteen years hadn't been long at all when she had her family. When they were lost, she learned that it could be, when alone. With Brendan gone, she had to learn it over again.

And then he was back, and he wasn't a child any more. Something was lost in between the day the Vikings attacked and his return, something she knew she would miss. He _was_  still her friend…

…but seeing how much he had changed…that was when she realized, even with her lifespan halved by Crom, she would live many, many years after he was gone.

And Aisling didn't know how she would bear it.

**3.**

Cellach thought he felt old when he was working on the Wall. Trying to keep Brendan safe. Trying to get everything finished before the Northmen attacked.

He sighed and rolled over in the bed as he felt bones creak. He hadn't truly felt old until he woke up with an arrow in his chest, a wound though his back to his gut, surrounded by the literal wreckage of his life.

He remembered watching Brendan, filled with youthful energy, running errands. Then, he had felt a pang of regret for not letting him have a normal childhood of playing and making friends.  _But it is necessary,_  he thought.

So many years later, he felt soul crushing guilt. Then again, everything that remotely reminded him of Brendan made him soul crushingly guilty.

His large form folded into fetal position, tucking his hands into his long beard. Now his body matched his mind; his skin, hair, and eyes were faded like ink on old parchment.

Old.

Tired, always.

_(Useless. Weak. I couldn't protect him—)_

And he kept  _forgetting_  things. Which ear Brendan had pierced twice. The exact way he spoke.

Cellach felt a stab of fear as he looked at Brendan's paper, clutched in his thin, bony fingers. What if…what if he forgot everything?

The thought was horrifying.

All he could do was hold tight and pray.

 _(Brendan, don't leave me_ please _)_

**4.**

Brendan wasn't old, no, but he had learned patience and how to slow down from the book; after all, if he rushed he got sloppy, and if he was sloppy he would incorporate errors into the pages and then he'd have to start over. A waste of time, supplies, and talent.

He wasn't using such lessons right then.

He had chased his faerie guide through a massive forest and he could finally see Kells, broken and dull as it looked. The early half of his life was spent sheltered behind its walls. It was still  _home_.

Brendan felt as if he was twelve again, returning to the abbey after spending time in the forest; giddy, but afraid that the Abbot would find out.

He lost some of it when he thought of his uncle. So many years later, he still felt the ache of loss and regret for not returning to help.

Slowing, he crept through the space where the gate used to be.

The place felt barren; there weren't many huts. Of the few there were, some of them seemed abandoned. He didn't expect that…

It hit him, how long he'd been gone. He didn't know anything about Kells now. Not who lived there, not who rebuilt it…not even who the Abbot was.

But if even one Brother was welcoming, it was home. No matter how much time had changed it.

Brendan took a deep breath and walked to the past-turned-future and hoped.


	4. mix (1)

**untouchable**

Brendan liked heights.

It scared his uncle half to death, true, but he simply couldn't keep his feet on the ground.

The first full night back in Kells, he found himself and Pangur scaling the broken wall to see if Aisling was around. He stayed up to watch the leaves, then the stars, and then he fell asleep and awoke to watch the sun rise. And that was how it would be every night that wasn't too cold.

" _Why?"_  Cellach had asked.

"Because, uncle…I can watch everything. I can see all the people in Kells. I can see the trees and sky." But it was more than that.

He climbed to be left alone.

Brendan loved his uncle, and he loved the people of Kells. But he had a lot on his shoulders. As the Abbot grew more haggard, he had to prepare for taking his place. He had to worry about helping the few monks that remained and to find more to restore the abbey. He had to think about if the Northmen returned. He had to keep his Uncle's health up, he had to keep their new band of hunters from killing the wolves, he had to make ink with limited supplies, he had to make more manuscripts—

So when he was frustrated, or tired, when he had a spare moment, he went up.

To where he was untouchable.

**guessing**

"Brendan, how old is Brother Aidan?"

"Huh?" The boy glanced at Brother Square, handing Brother Sergei some tools. "I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"See? I told you!" Brother Leonardo burst out from the scaffolding below. "Why would he tell Brendan?"

"What's this about?" Brendan asked. Nobody heard him, getting caught up in their odd discussion.

"Only because he hasn't had reason to ask!"

"It's suspicious!" Leonardo insisted.

"This is ridiculous," Sergei muttered.

Brendan tried again. "What-?"

"Vell, you know how Saint Columcille began the Book of Iona two hundred years ago?" Brother Friedrich called from the wall above. "How and vhen did Brother Aidan come to work with him, I vundered. I even asked the others. But zhey don't know!"

"And we didn't want to come right out and ask him," Square mentioned, looking mildly embarrassed.

Sergei turned from his stone-laying. "So they've been arguing about it day and night."

Leonardo shot his fellow Brother a glare, which morphed back into an eager expression as he glanced at the boy. "Could you do it, Brendan?"

"Um…" It felt rude, but now he was rather curious as well. "But what if it annoys him?" It probably wouldn't… but it felt odd, prying into the Master Illuminator's life like that. He'd only been around for a few weeks, after all. "And I barely know him more than you do!"

Leonardo looked downtrodden. "Well…"

" _Brendan!"_  They all jumped at the Abbot's sudden call. "Come here! I need you to deliver these plans!"

Brendan felt a surge of relief as he left the brothers to their guessing.

**puncture**

Brother Tang knew that God's intervention was the only reason the Abbot wasn't dead.

Presently, he was unconscious on the floor of his room. There were no blankets to spare; his robe was removed and placed under him. Blood still soaked through, distorting the chalk designs on the floor.

Tang ordered some of the strongest men to gather herbs from the forest. The amount they managed to get was meager, though they were lucky not to be harmed; fresh wolf prints were found surrounding them.

All he could do to tear up some old robes to use as bandages for the stab wound. It seemed to be working alright.

But the arrow…the arrow was a different matter entirely.

The arrowhead had to be physically cut out, or the wound would become infected. If left alone, death would be a certainty.

Tang held a knife in his tiny hands. It was old, chipped on one side, but it was better than nothing.

The men who helped with the herbs gathered around the prone Abbot's form and pinned each limb down. His teeth bared, but he did not awaken.

Tang took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry."

_Cellach drifted._

" _Uncle?"_

_Cellach jerked to his left. He couldn't see who it was, but the voice was unmistakable._

" _Brendan?" His voice was hoarse._

" _Uncle…"_

_The voice was closer now, right behind him._

" _Why did you fail, Uncle?"_

_He flinched, his face haggard. "Brendan, I—I am-"_

_Brendan stepped in front of him. Cellach gaped in horror at the burns—_

_And wordless, white-hot agony overwhelmed everything. Something was trying to tear his heart from his chest-_

His eyes flew open, and all he saw was tall, dark figures pinning him down. He struggled madly, but his diminished strength did nothing more than cause more pain and blood.  _"_ St-stop!" _please—_

"Cellach, you mustn't-"

"Abbot! I am trying to-!"

" _Uncle, why-?"_

_STOP_

_STOP IT_

Everything was rushing around him and _oh God please it hurts it hurts it hurts_ it was  _insane_ —

Everything, all the pain and terror hit him at once like a fraction of his beloved Wall.

He passed out completely.

Tang breathed out a sigh of relief as the arrowhead came out.

 _At least it won't hurt him anymore,_  he thought sympathetically, reaching for a needle and thread to sew up the puncture.


	5. i promise

You pride yourself on being calm (it's a miracle that you came out so well, with the decidedly less-than-calm Aidan being your mentor for so long) but you wonder if you'd been _too_  calm. It isn't every day you come across someone you thought dead for…

…has it really been eighteen years? Yes. Yes, it has. You were only twelve when you were forced to flee.

It hasn't really hit you yet. That you're _back_. You can't quite consider it home, though—you've lived with Aidan in the little house-scriptorium by the ocean for so long, and everything in Kells has changed. From the people—so few left!—to the jagged remnants of the wall.

"Brendan…"

You turn from the window and glance at your uncle, but stop yourself from speaking. He's still asleep. ( _You_  should be asleep, you haven't slept in nearly two days…)

He's curled up under the blanket, shivering. It isn't particularly cold, especially for late spring.

"Brendan," he calls out again. You know he's having a nightmare, but you find yourself frozen. You know you should wake him up, reassure him, because he's crying, he's crying for you. He's begging for you to come back, that he's sorry, that it's all his fault, and his grip hasn't loosened on that paper.

It's horrifying an a whole different level than what you're used to. Simply thinking of his body on the snowy ground wasn't this awful, because at least then, you had thought, his soul is resting in the kingdom of heaven _._

But this—he's…he's so  _broken_. Even when you'd wandered the land, showing the Book to the many victims of the Viking's attacks, you seldom met a soul this shattered.

He isn't speaking anymore, but he's still crying silently.

It's clear the long years have been an unending nightmare, a living hell.

You press your hand to his shoulder.

His eyes take a few long seconds to open, and he flinches when he sees you. The tiny movement is unexpectedly painful.

He looks lost and terrified and exhilarated all at once. (A tiny part of you wonders if that's what you looked like, the first time you went into the forest. Like nothing you could ever truly discribe, pure feeling and awe, and it looks so strange on his face.)

He says your name again, or tries to—either his voice or your ears fail, you can't tell. Outwardly you're just as composed as you've ever been, but you don't know what to do next.

The Abbot gingerly reaches over and grips your arm.

' _Are you really here?'_   he whispers, or maybe you just think it. He's still lying on his side, and even though you see that he can still tower over you he looks so tiny and so old… you feel like he's going to fall apart right in front of you.

He's silent—waiting for you to do something.

_Are you really here?_

Very gently, you wrap your hands around his.

Your voice is soft, but it shatters the silence all the same.

"I'm here." He tightens his grip on your shoulder.

"…I'm so tired…" he whispers.

"I know. I'm here, Uncle. Rest. I won't leave…I promise."

 


	6. breaking

Brother Sergei…Brother Assoua…Brother Leonardo…Brother Square… they all fell when the Vikings broke down the doors.

The survivors stayed for a few seasons, helping rebuild the church and the huts and the scriptorium. But they eventually left. Some apologized honestly and said that they would not return; they would to go to new monasteries to warn them, and to escape the memories of that blood-soaked night.

Some said that they would return with help and new brothers to restore Kells' glory.

Tang was unsure if that had been a flat-out lie, if they tried and couldn't get back, or if they were struck down by the ever-increasing threat of the Northmen elsewhere.

The result was the same. No-one ever came back. Tang was the only Brother left.

Tang knocked gently on Cellach's door. "Abbot? Are you—?"  _alright_ , he nearly asked. A foolish question. "...You haven't eaten in days. Come out. I have breakfast."

No answer.

He balled up his tiny fist and knocked again.  _What if he isn't there?_  Tang wondered briefly, until the silence was broken by the creaking of floorboards inside.

Tang sighed and leaned to the keyhole. "Abbot Cellach," he said quietly, "I will leave it at the top of the stairs if you wish. But you must eat. Please."

Another long silence. Tang's shoulders slumped, and he turned to go.

The door opened.

Cellach looked awful. His eyes were bloodshot, the area around them even darker then usual. His beard was unkempt and shot through with more grey than Tang swore he'd seen the week before.

Tang briefly scanned the room, dismally lit even with sunlight shining through the single window. The blankets were thrown onto the floor beside the bed, on top of which he spotted the gleam of a key.

Silently, Tang offered him the tray.

Cellach's eyes were slow to focus, and when they finally did, it didn't look like he was about to take it.

"You may come in," he said quietly, sounding for all the world like he was perfectly fine. His afore-mentioned appearance and solitude, as well as an almost unnoticeable shaking of limbs, told the old monk how great of a lie it was.

"Just put it on the bedside table." the Abbot instructed. "I'll eat it later," he added softly.

"…You should eat it now."

Cellach looked at him frostily. "I can take care of myself, Brother Tang."

"You are near collapse. Please, Abbot. And you must go outside sometimes—the villagers are afraid that you are dying."

"Do they?" He chuckled mirthlessly. "What does it matter?"

Tang stared at him disbelievingly.

"Why, Tang? The villagers are doing fine on their own; the crops are growing well, the huts have been rebuilt and the rest have left for more protected places. I can do no more. I…"

His hand touched where his robes hid the burning arrow scar. A paper that Tang hadn't noticed—Brendan's paper—scraped against the cloth softly.

"I cannot give them hope…I can no longer illuminate. Brendan—" his voice hushed once again he carefully unfolded the paper. "Brendan's work is the most divine art I have ever seen," he whispered.

Tang gently set the tray on the table. "His art—"  _was_  "—is more impressive than even my own was, when I was young," he agreed softly. "But the survivors do not need only illuminators." Cellach stared at him with empty eyes for a moment before recalling what they had speaking of before.

"Then what?" his voice broke. "They need someone strong. They need someone who can keep them focused on what is truly important. I am neither of those things," he rasped.

Tang didn't know what to say.

Eventually, Cellach started speaking again. "I thought the wall would work." His breath shuddered. "I thought that everything was going to work.  _Why didn't it work_? It should—why was I so arrogant—why didn't I  _do more?_  But how could I have known?" Cellach looked to him then, face twisting into something horrified and desperate. "How could I have known how strong—no. I knew. Aidan told me. Aidan told me directly."

Now Cellach was looking back out the glassless window, hands pressed against its sides. He was speaking to himself then, voice harsh. "I heard him. I didn't listen. They—they—he was only a boy!" he burst out. "He didn't deserve—I saved him as an infant only to have him die like that—"

He sank to his knees. "How could I have known?"

Tang gingerly placed a hand on his back. Cellach flinched but otherwise didn't respond.

"Brendan…Brendan, I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Tang gently tugged on his shoulder. "Come, Abbot. You must…"  _eat_ , he nearly said, but it was clear that with the way he was shaking and barely holding back sobs that there was little chance that he would even be able to keep the food down. "…you must get your rest."

Cellach numbly allowed himself to be maneuvered back to the bed, lying down at Tang's slight touches. He stared blindly at the drawings along the walls as the old monk carefully pulled the sheets over him.

Tang prayed beside the bed for hours, listening to Cellach's barely-audible whispers of anguish as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

Even in sleep, Brendan's paper never left his hand.


	7. blanch

The chapel floor is black as death, looks burnt raw by blood. The light shines through the remnents of the roof, stains the bodies grey but for their eyes; they're blanker than the rest of them, but the colors seem to be brighter than life.

Leonardo managed to get closest to the door. He sat only a few steps away, eyes half open and unseeing. His right hand is limp on the floor. The candle he once held is just in front of it, the shape of his fingers imprinted in the hardened wax. His head was angled toward Assoua, who was further back.

His arms and chest and face were so  _defiled_ , it's obvious that he didn't give up without a fight. He had been defending the refugees that had taken shelter there, and partially succeeded.

Brother Square's form was collapsed right behind him, face urgent—he had been trying to help Assoua back up.

Friedrich and Sergei lay in the very middle of the isle. Sergei had fallen in that spot, it was clear; however, Friedrich…

Blood trailed from an area near the altar, all the way to Sergei. By the smearing about a quarter of the distance, it seemed that his legs had failed, and he had painstakingly crawled and dragged himself the rest of the way. Their fingers were tangled in a last hope of comforting the other.

The living are too dead in their own losses to return to the church before even their eyes are covered by the falling white. Their final stories are too hard to read for most; the ones who do feel the bite of hate that was never there and the fear that truly had been.


	8. illusive

The sky is dark, though a few tendrils of light from the East creeps through the gaping holes in the wall. A pale girl is balancing on a rare still-firm section of it.

Cellach is resting beside Brendan's grave, as he always does, and few things could compel him to move; this is one of them. The worn Abbot stands up and calls to her, tells her to wait until he could get to her, fearing for her life.

She gives him a strange look and seems to waver. Her voice is soft but cuts through the pre-dawn stillness like glass.

_Then…I can come in?_  she asks, face blank.

He nods and hurries over,  _Yes, yes of course you can_ —he couldn't, wouldn't let another innocent be lost because of him—

And then she nods and  _leaps_.

His heart seizes in his chest and he feels himself choke on a scream, but she lands in front of him as gently as a fallen leaf before it could escape his throat. Her head shifts to the side, hair fluttering peculiarly, showing him a flash of teeth in her amusement.

Before he can speak, she's vanished. He spins around, trying to find her.

_Get away from there!_  Cellach feels a flash of horror as she stands on top of Brendan's grave. Never mind that it's empty, it is not to be desecrated—

_Why? What is it?_

_It's—it's a—my nephew—_ he doesn't know what to say to this strange child, but she seems to understand anyway and respectfully steps away.

_He's not..._  She starts and pauses and smiles again, smaller, sadder, but genuine in a way that keeps any of his angry words from fully forming.

She wavers for a moment, like mist, then flings her arms around him for a heartbeat; she's gone before he can properly react.

Cellach awakens beside the grave in the early morning to Tang's soft touch upon his forehead.

As he sits up, he feels a soft crunch of plants breaking underneath his hand.

He's completely surrounded by white flowers. Even on the stone of Brendan's grave the snowdrops grow, looking almost natural, with their dew-covered petals glittering in the morning sunlight.


	9. holding on

The trees flash by, slapping your face and clawing your hair. You're bleeding, reminding you of the first time you ventured past the walls. It hurts.

That's good. It means you're still awake, still able to try to help.

" _Aisling_!" This isn't the first time you call her name, but it's risen to a scream now, raw and terrified. If she's there...if she _wants_ to—

(you're just a mortal after all)

—she'll hear you, and she will come.

A blindingly white wolf flickers into existence beside you so suddenly you jump up in shock and nearly tumble over. She giggles in your head and you smile weakly, but it fades—there's no time for that now.

"Aisling," you whisper, and your voice breaks. You try again, but you haven't planned this, you're almost afraid. "I don't—I don't know what to _do_ —"

The story of the last few hours spill from your mouth like blood.

Cellach. Uncle. He was there. Alive. He didn't—

He saw the Book. You showed him the Book. He was smiling-he'd been smiling, more than you, because shock-pain-fear of the memories of his form on the snow warred inside, while his shock flew straight to joy. But he was smiling more then, and weeping he was so _happy,_ but he had been rasping so much; each breath was dragged out and crackled like a dying fire.

His eyes were so calm but you leaped forward and told him to  _calm down, breathe._ And then you whispered so Tang couldn't hear  _I'm still here, don't leave me, please?_

You felt selfish then, but you haven't seen him in so long—you didn't know he was alive—you saw the arrow jutting up from his chest, and the snow and the flames—how—?

But it didn't matter. Uncle is dying, and you could tell from the trembling and guilt and fear in his intonation ("Angel of Darkness! Not yet! Not yet! I need time!") that he hadn't held any more joy than he had even before the Wall was more than plans.

He deserves more happiness than a single glance at the Book.

So you did the only thing you could. You held his hand and kept him breathing with the time of your own until his eyes slid shut, and though it still rattled and his heartbeat was thready you dared to leave.

You placed the Book onto his lap, ordered Tang and Pangur to stay as politely as you could, and ran into the forest.

And the words finally dry up in your throat. You're kneeling on the ground, though you don't remember falling. But that doesn't matter, either.

You stare into Aisling's frosty green eyes and whisper, "Will you help me?"  _Will you? Will you?_   _Do you still care for me like when I was young and always sneaking out to see you? Or have I stayed away too long?_

For a single, trembling instant, neither of you move, even to breathe. You simply stare, try to see the truth, the hope, the friendship that may have lived through it all—

And there's a child standing before you, a grin playing around her lips, and a cool but comfortable hand grabbing at your fingers. "Maybe I can," she laughs, and suddenly you feel like a monster for ever doubting her.


	10. shades

The Abbot and the monks never see them.

Most of the people of Kells don’t see them, in fact.

The children do.

Always late, when huts are covered in mist and leak through every crack or space to spin their patterns like spider webs, when the fires are nothing more than embers, when they dare to peer through the cloth that is their substitute for doors.

Ghosts, they whisper to each other. Spirits lingering from the attack. What else could they be?

Not many. Never the adults. They walk through the mist like they’re a part of it, alone.

One of them say that maybe it’s just one spirit, one little girl, but he’s quickly shot down. They leave quickly and abruptly as others appear across the village, or slipping up the side of the Tower, or standing on the Wall. That had to be more than one. And no girl, spirit or not (they scoff), would bother crawling along in the mud and through the sheep.

The children of Kells don’t tell their parents—or whatever they have in left in place of parents. They look too sad all the time on their own, and telling them the truth—that their family comes to visit, but they can’t seem to see them—would make them even more sad.

So they leave things out. Milk and honey, just a little bit when they get some together, nothing each individual adult would notice. Toys, sometimes broken and sometimes not.

The ghosts seem to like them. The milk and honey is always gone in the morning, and the toys sometimes vanish for days, but somehow they find their way back to where they’d been left before.

Once, a few act brave and try to catch one. They end up panicking and _run_ and _run_ and _run_ back home crying, but the spirits don’t follow and the adults don’t do anything except hug them and reassure them that they’re just nightmares and they’re safe and alright, and even though they’re scared they try to believe it.

They leave out a little more milk and honey and more the next night, and the next, and the one after that, but everything is left alone. Some are happy. Some are sad that they chased what might’ve been friends and family away.

But they all grow up and put it behind them

(and none of them ever suspect the truth.)


	11. shelter

****

Kells welcomes all who seek safety.

_All._

That is uncommon.

The brothers hear tales of other places who said they welcomed all for refuge against the Northman, and many times they hear of the opposite. Tales of rejection and anger if they don’t seem to be right—too old, too young, ill in the head, Pagan, Crom-worshippers, “drainers of food and water meant for better mouths” forced to move on from one to the next, rarely able to stay for more than a night.

Abbot Cellach is not a cruel man, as intimidating and cold as he may seem. The monks are kind. The people of Kells are agreeable, being led by such people, and many know family and friends who had been lost to the Northmen already.

When the Abbot comes the gates, he does not even speak to those he did not know before—he simply stands aside to let them in, rather than attacking them with questions. The brothers of Kells come up and speak with them as to where they will stay, and reassure them they are safe in the walls and the chapel, no matter who they are. All that is asked is that they tell the Abbot about where the Northmen attacked and when.

The intention was simply to be kind, but it turned out very well. There was no end to the grateful volunteers to work on the Wall, to grow crops, to take care of the animals. It grew from something small to something massive and intricate and unlike any other place in Ireland.

Kells welcomes all who seek safety, and it is all the more beautiful for it.


	12. mix (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts from tumblr user goodbyenorthernlights.

**temperature**

The truth was simple.

It had been cold before the attack with the breath of winter, chilled to its core. Then the Vikings’ burning arrows had flown in and struck the scaffolding, letting the flames lick up the wall and fluxing the temperature quickly. The heat disrupted the mortar and shifted the set stone, leaving the mighty stone wall filled with cracks anywhere from halfway down to completely to the ground.

But the people of Kells wouldn’t know that; and if they had, it would be no source of comfort.

Wind whistled through the spaces, eerie and bringing a powerful chill with it. Or perhaps the chill was only in their minds, through its reminder that they were not safe, that everything outside could get inside, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.

**resistance**

No matter how angered his uncle had been, he always kept is voice low, always left marks with well-chosen words instead of with hands or switches, like Brendan had seen other adults do with their children when they misbehaved. And Brendan had caused enough trouble in the past to earn many beatings, if some of the village children’s mumbling was to be believed.

Maybe that’s why his uncle’s painful grip to drag him back to the tower was so shocking.

It actually  _hurt_. Not a lot, not even enough to make his eyes sting like scraping his feet against bark did sometimes, but it was enough to leave him quiet and unresisting to his movement and order to get down the ladder until he found himself inside his room.

Perhaps his uncle hadn’t realized in his anger. Or maybe that it would put him back into how he had been before the book, before Aidan.

He felt something flare within his chest. No. He wouldn’t just give up—too much was riding on it. If Brendan had to fight his uncle the entire way…he knew that he would.

**when**

Aisling spoke for a long time.

“Remember when we met? Remember when I saved you? Remember when you saved me? Remember when we played in the oak tree and you asked to draw me?”

Mist crawled through the window, blanketing them both.

She stayed for a long time too, long after her words faded out into thoughts.

_Remember when your hair was red? Remember when your eyes didn’t look clouded by cobwebs?_

_Remember when they still opened?_

 

 


	13. mix (3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompts from reka1207 on tumblr. Also I know I missed some of the brothers but Jesus Christ it’s midnight while I’m writing this ok

**cold**

Aidan’s skin is singed through pulsing heat of the flames, but he has dealt with it before. 

He doesn’t quite realize that it’s worse the second time, fueled by fear and desperation to keep Brendan safe after nearly failing thrice—the Scriptorium, the Vikings, the wolves—until they stop to rest after hours of running.

He feels prickling waves run up is face and arms—and from how Brendan winces and shakes, he knows he isn’t the only one.

They curl up in a hollow at the bottom of a tree. It’s small and it doesn’t shield them from the cold, so Aidan lies on his side and twists his cloak around to partially cover them both.

The cold is worse than what the heat had done, so he wraps around Brendan and feels Brendan press into him and Pangur pushes herself between them. They ignore the icy burn of the ground until it fades and simply curl together tighter when the wind manages to cut into the hollow.

Brendan falls asleep after a few hours, but Aidan never does. The cold makes his bones ache, and he feels he has parchment stretched over a frame instead of skin. He watches his breath fade into mist and shifts to keep the dampness in his eyes from falling to Brendan chilling him further.

He can only pray that they survive the winter.

**refer**

Aisling hears Brendan refer to the brothers of Kells so many times, she recognizes them the first time she sees them.

The large one with a laugh that carries and skin as dark as hers is pale, Brother Assoua. The orange-robed one with the great mustache who waves his arms around like a madman, Brother Leonardo. The gloomy-faced one that wore warm blue robes no matter the weather, Brother Sergei. Another in orange, but so dwarfed by the rest that she wouldn’t have spotted him if he had been wearing anything more drab, Brother Tang. The Abbot, clad in bloody red and nearly always on the Wall where she could easily catch a glimpse. And of course old Brother Aidan, who was why he visited her forest in the first place, with that cat of his and why Brendan drew her pretty pictures too.

It’s strange, how familiar they all feel. She doesn’t know if she likes it.

**inter**

Few of the villagers had much left to bury—there were those struck down by the Northmen in the center of Kells and in the church, but many more perished fleeing and dying inside or in the spaces between the huts.

Nothing more than a few charred bones were left within the field of ash.

But Cellach had hoped, prayed that there was something left for him to find in the Scriptorium. Something of Brendan and Aidan, something to bury and pray over and weep over and believe that they might somehow hear.

He dug through the remains of the building with a mad fervor, not stopping until a coat of ash covered every part of his body. _You’re there. You’re there. I know you’re there. I’m sorry, please, please let me find you._

He rarely took breaks. Sometimes he left to help dig graves for the rest. Brother Tang tried to stop him, insisted that his wounds were too fresh, that he didn’t need to do this. He refuses each time. The pain from the sword and the arrow is nothing compared to death by the flames.

It takes him until summer to comb through every inch of the Scriptorium. He finds pots and shattered glass from the ink bottles, the remnants of books, even a few quills that kept nearly intact beneath the ashes.

It takes him until winter to bear making the markers for the last pair of empty graves.

 


	14. wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> random bit of an AU idea here today.

**  
**

**1**

Bren knew he was human, or at least that he wasn’t what his parents and sister were.

He had straight red hair, they had curls of white. He was slow and felt frail, they were fast and stronger than anything else in the forest. His big sister exclaimed that he got bigger every time she blinked, and she looked the same no matter how far back he searched in his memory.

His differences didn’t bother him much. Aisling told him that she’d asked Mother for a brother, a _good_ brother, and out of every baby in the world, he was the one that she picked. And he could do things that no human could seem to do—race up trees without a thought, endear himself to any animal no matter how vicious, sleep within the trees without fear of becoming unwell. (Although Mother’s magic might be responsible for that last one.)

He secretly thought he could do things his family couldn’t do either, but he never wanted to. Why go behind walls or into one of their strange holy places without being invited?

And the people who built the walls _stayed_ there. He couldn’t imagine living without the beauty of their forest.

**2**

“I don’t know your real name.”

“Didn’t you give it to me, though?”

“No, dear.” The Queen laughed. “You picked it yourself. It was the only thing you could say, along with ‘no’. But that isn’t a bad thing.”

“Really?”

“Really. Names have power, after all.”

“ _Magic_ power?”

“Yes, magic power. Power over the people who have it, and that can be used against them. Nobody knows your real name, so nobody has that power over you.”

“Not even you?”

“Not even me.”

**3**

There were people traipsing through the forest. Constantly. They’d learn why later, but they didn’t care much for that when it started. There were just too many, and it filled everything with a buzz of agitation.

And then Aisling and Bren decided to do something about it.

Aisling ran with her wolves to chase them out. Bren perched above the footpaths and leapt down to tear whatever they held away, and let them chase him until they were exhausted and stumbling and lost, until he lured them through the mist and dropped whatever it was outside the limits.

Switch and repeat until they gave up.

Most fled elsewhere—and the number of travelers dropped significantly.

“They must be telling stories about us,” Aisling said, brushing her palm over a mother wolf’s head after three weeks in a row of waiting and watching. “Telling everyone to keep away from the fearsome wolves and the thief ghost.”

Bren agreed and hoped that they would last.

As it turned out, they didn’t. An old man showed up the very next day.

The wolves worked for a day or so, but instead of running and staying away, he went around and came in from another path. It was time for Bren to step in.

He had to track him a little first—he was surprisingly fast for such an old human. It was only for a day or so before he leapt from a tree and tore the oddly-shaped satchel from the old man’s grip, ignoring his cry and the cat’s hiss.

Bren darted through bushes and around trees, wincing a little as the man crashed through most of them.

_“Wait!”_

It was farther from the edge of the forest than he’d realized. He couldn’t climb up a tree, or the old man would lose him, but if he kept running along the ground it would take hours.

_“Please—!”_

An old man and a cat weren’t much of a threat…but if he let in one, who knew how many would follow?

He slowed his pace somewhat when he heard a rip and a thud. When he didn’t hear anything after but increasingly desperate mews, he doubled back entirely.

The man lay flat on the ground, with the white cat nuzzling at his face. From the tear in his sleeve, it seemed it had caught on a branch and knocked him off balance enough to slam his head into a particularly sturdy trunk.

Bren felt something seize in his chest. He hadn’t killed anyone before…

Aisling wasn’t there.

He ran.

 

 


	15. untame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more AU bits that tie in with the last chapter.

**3**

Aisling is told when the intruder woke up and started running; to the place with walls, no doubt. That was fine with her. There hadn’t been others for a few weeks, and an old man and a cat wasn’t enough to bother the rest of the forest or her.

Especially when Bren decided to hide in the ancient oak tree instead of coming home.

She found her big-little brother asleep up high, satchel cushioning the back of his head and the a shiny thing with other things inside of it—like leaves—pressed on his face.

She was quiet, but he woke soon as she stepped beside him anyway. He always knew when she was there.

_What were you thinking?_ she nearly asks, but then she sees how his eyes are glassy and reddish and says “What’s that?” and points to the shiny-leaf-thing he’s clutching.

He doesn’t seem to be expecting that. “I-I don’t know. It’s—I took—Aisling, I’m sorry, the old human came back and I think he’s dead and I almost got him out and I didn’t mean to do it, really!”

Her eyes widen a little. Not being happy at loss of life she could understand, but he acted like when Mo—he acted as though he knew the man personally, had something tangible to know and grieve over.

“It’s alright, Bren. He’s alive, the deer told me so.”

He rocks back at the news, and the relief that floods his face doesn’t make any more sense than the grief. 

“I don’t know what this is,” he says again after regaining his breath. “But it’s beautiful. It’s—it feels like a piece of the forest is in there, Ash!”

This statement is so ludicrous she ignores how he shortens her name for the first time in ages. “My forest is not in a thing made of—of calf-skins and metal,” she spat viciously.

“No, no, that’s not—” He stops at the look on her face. “Look,” he says instead, opening and flicking through it.

She does.

Mostly, there are just black scribbles. But they don’t linger on those; instead, he shows her the parts filled with golds of the dawn and greens from the trees and all manner of designs that seem to move, all on their own.

She doesn’t go back on what she said. _Her_ forest isn’t a part of that.

She must look less angry, though, because he goes on. “I think the old man made it. Or was a part of it. So I want—I want to give it back.”

Aisling blinks owlishly. “Why? He didn’t hold onto it tight enough. It’s pretty enough to keep.”

“But it’s blank in places. I want to see more of it. Don’t you?”

“…Maybe. But he’s gone to the place with walls, you know.”

Bren slumps just a bit, but doesn’t hesitate. “Then I’ll go behind the walls. Just…just for a little bit. Not long.”

**2**

“Ash.”

“Aisling.”

“Ashleeeeee.”

_“Aisling.”_

“Ashashashash.”

“No! Say it right! _Aisling_!”

A whimper.

“No, don’t—Bren, don’t cry, I’m sorry, I—Mother! _Mother_!”

**1**

She knows where babies come from, and she knows that her kind can’t have them often.

That doesn’t stop her from being lonely. She keeps asking her mother _can I have a brother_ , even though she knows the only way she could get one means the answer will be _no_.

_What if someone had stolen you? I know I would cry and cry and miss you forever, my dearest daughter. And you want to do that to another mother? Like me?_

Of course she doesn’t, so she gives up. At least until she’s lonely again.

And then one day Mother comes back with her arms stained up and down with soot, a little squirming thing swaddled in her arms.

He wasn’t a faerie, he wasn’t quiet, it would take him a while to learn how to really play, and he was not going to be long-lived.

She didn’t care.

_You’re still my brother._

 

 


	16. fourth mix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts from reka1207 on tumblr~

**whisper**

Not everyone hates him, but only Tang cares enough to be kind.

The rest drop their voices to whispers when he draws near, as if it is his ears that were wounded instead of his back and his chest. (Or perhaps they know, and their intent is only to wound.)

He does not correct them, and he does not stop them.

What they say is true— _his fault—my children—my mother—my husband—so many lost_ —and each word feels like a new knife to his gut, and he bears the quiet whispers with their true weight. It crushes him.

Cellach knows he deserves it.

**benign**

The pieces of the gate that hadn’t already burned are shifted back in front of the opening, but that doesn’t stop little foxes from slipping in and out. When great wolfprints are found on the other side of Kells in spite of it, the blockade is the first thing to be used as firewood for the long winter ahead.

(Strangely, no wolfprints appear after that.)

Spring comes, and so do the birds. They pick at what’s left of the huts for their nests, which they settle in spaces where the Wall cracked.

Long grass and forest plants grow along the path and in the clearing, until suddenly the survivors realize they can’t separate the outside from the inside by simply looking at the ground. There’s a small effort to stop it, to separate Kells from the forest again, but they give up when there’s even more in its place the next morning.

The geese that once supplied the monks with quills come and go as they please. Eventually, so do the people.

As the years pass, ivy vines creep and moss makes wild patterns on the wall. It becomes—not common, but not very unusual to spot deer within the walls at night.

And in such quiet increments, Kells is reclaimed by the forest.

**supine**

Playing is great fun. Climbing always gives a rush. Discovering secrets—or being shown some—never stops being thrilling.

But sometimes he gets tired running around all day, delivering plans and supplies and working to improve his art. Sometimes she withdraws and calms and decides the forest needs quiet.

Those days, they don’t need to speak. They simply find a clearing and lay down, watching the clouds drift by. Sometimes animals join, Aisling’s wolves or deer, but they don’t disturb them.

Those days shine on in their memories as the most beautiful.

**brittle**

Brother Aidan is so animated, exuberant, _alive_ in everything he does. It’s infectious. It’s inspiring. Brendan loves it.

And maybe that’s why he forgot the truth. That Aidan was _old_. That he’d lost everything but the Book and Pangur and the clothes on his back.

He’d gotten a glimpse of that when the Eye had been lost, but then Brendan got the other and that eclipsed the pain of Aidan’s supposed failure so quickly and powerfully it was like it hadn’t happened.

And then the Northmen attack Kells.

He tries to keep strong, but Brendan notices that Aidan is quieter, sits on his own when they need breaks and buries his face in his hands when he thinks Brendan isn’t looking.

One night his eyes snap open, and he doesn’t realize why until he feels the back he’s pressed against shivering badly, even though the night is warmer than it’s been for a while.

So Brendan wraps his arms around him, ignores how Aidan tries and fails to stop the trembling and his feeble protests, and isn’t surprised when he gives up completely.

Sobs tear their way out from his mouth and it takes everything Brendan has not to join him, and then a little more to take deep breath and whisper reassurances instead. When the shaking gets worse Brendan holds on, holds on, as if his arms can keep all the pieces in place, stop the cracking and glue him back together.

It doesn’t work, at least not much, but eventually the sobs lower to whimpers and half-formed pleas to God and _I’m sorry I’m so sorry_ repeated over and over again, interspersed with several names he doesn’t recognize and a few that he does, including Uncle’s.

That cracks him and makes him sob a bit too, and that makes Aidan turn around and hug him tight and add his name to the endless litany of apologies, and that makes it even worse.

They fall asleep curled around each other like the first night they ran, faces nearly as freezing with the drying tears, and their voices are so hoarse that they can barely speak in the morning. He accepts Aidan’s apology and Aidan accepts his.

Each night ends up like that, but each morning they do the same, and somehow eventually it isn’t as hard as it was.

(But Brendan never forgets the truth again.)


	17. more prompts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ones this time. Prompts from an anonymous greyface on tumblr.

****

**Eye**

There were two, there was one, there were thousands.

Outside the bloody mound that the serpent wrapped itself in, its followers created faces for stone idols that stood sentinel, and they weren't enough.

So on the spikes that guided the fanatics to the lair to cut out the throats of offerings, they carved a legion for their god to more easily watch their sacrifices writhe and struggle and sob.

They were false, but symbols have power, and that power was enough for it to feel if not see when someone was foolish or mad enough to wander into their sights—

—and then there was a boy with the strength of hope who aimed to the genuine for spreading it and tore it out; and while it ate itself, the last faerie clawed every eye that watched her people die blind.

**Reflection**

The stained glass windows of the church had been beautiful. They still were, in a way, shattered and scattered in a thousand different shades of red in the flames.

Forced behind a pew that had been knocked aside and against the wall to keep the raiders from seeing him, the pieces of glass were his only way to see what was happening in the rest of the church.

He almost wished they didn't.

They caught flashes of books, labored over for years and years, some older than himself, torn apart for the pages to fly away in the heat-created breezes and to burn.

Of his Brothers too slow to hide, too slow to flee, their silhouettes ran through with the Northmen's great swords;  some lifted by the neck of their cloaks and flung into the inferno.

The reflections' distorted shapes and colors leant it unreality—until the smell—the _smell_ of roasting hair and robes and skin.

His horror of what had happened kept him hunched over in the hidden spot until long after the Northmen had left, dragging a few of the more able-bodied of his brothers along with them--for slavery, perhaps, or their corpses for trophies; he couldn't see clearly enough to tell.

(Aidan would be haunted long afterwards, not just for what he had seen, but what he hadn't; the guilt of not truly watching and surviving would claw through his dreams even after he made his way to Kells.)


	18. outsider

Everything had changed while he was away.

Which…made sense. Nothing stays entirely the same after nearly two decades, especially after a raid. He knew that.

It still made his heart ache.

The walls had been there as far back as he could remember. Much smaller, once, but they had grown along with him. At his return they were just…debris, broken down to half the size they had been when he fled.

Aside from sometimes reading out the directions when anyone else who was literate were too busy, or trying and failing to catch the goose in a wild chase through the huts, he hadn’t left much of an impression on anyone but his Brothers. And Tang and Uncle were the only monks left from before the attack.

They still led the prayers in the chapel, but that was all. They felt more like remnants of another time—which they were, in some ways. What was left of Kells had become more focused on simply _surviving_.

He managed to change that, a little, with the message of hope and light he brought back; but even the Book couldn’t change that Kells and the people in it were not what they had been…nor that Brendan wasn’t who _he_ had been.

In some ways he felt more restricted than even when the Wall threw all of Kells in its shadow. At least then he could be overlooked when he wanted to leave, but no, he was one of the few Brothers left for those (also few) who were devout. Maybe even the next Abbot.

He didn’t—he didn’t quite want to think about that. Of Uncle dying so quickly after his return. And Tang, however healthy, was old as well, and sooner than later Brendan would be the only one left.

 _Broken walls are still walls_ , he found himself thinking, and of the Book so proudly shown in the Scriptorium. He wanted to go spread that the darkness and danger wasn’t all that was left in the world.

Even sleeping was a challenge, sometimes. He was used to hearing their leaves rustling above his head, not as an echo that felt farther than the sea. And he hadn’t seen Aisling since she led him back to Kells.

He’d thought of going home at least once a night since he’d left, but with that wish fulfilled he finally realizes that it’s not _his_ home anymore ( _or not home again yet, just give it time Brendan_ and _Yes Uncle, I will)_ and that it never will be again.

(but it was and it would be; it was the Book _of Kells_ now, not the book of some far-off island, and so it would stay and so would he, no matter how much of an outsider he knew he was.)


	19. fallacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from reka1207 on tumblr—and last chapter was from inappropriate-shenanigans.

****

**fallacy**

He hears Cellach talk on about how the Wall will protect them, the Wall will be finished within two years, the Wall is more important than the Book, and none of his protests are heeded.

He hears how Brendan has never walked beyond the Wall in all of his life, and Aidan bites his tongue about berries and ink and the beauty of the Forest. It is dangerous, and a young boy getting it into his head to run into a place with wolves and worse could deprive the world of a joyful soul. (The world needs joyful souls now more than ever.)

Aidan thinks about going with Brendan the day after, when his thoughts clear with the dawn that the Wall nearly hides. That joy would most certainly be of use for the Book, and when he goes to the Scriptorium and speaks with the Brothers about the boy he hears praise over his enthusiasm and potential talent—if not for the Wall, they mutter.

He still asks them to rearrange the desks like he had been used to on Iona, and they agree quickly—but Cellach interrupts with his cold voice, Brendan trailing nervously behind him.

They argue. His words are, as always, not heeded. Brendan keeps himself out of the way, but Aidan catches frightened and sad looks pointed his way from the corner of his eye. ‘Sorry’, he reads on his lips.  ‘I’m really sorry…’

 _This is not Iona,_ the Abbot of Kells says with eyes full of steel, and Aidan feels something within his chest crack.

He finds a scrap of half-ruined vellum and writes a note of apology in shaky handwriting, and leaves it on the desk by the fireplace. He does not address it to anyone.

 _No, this is not Iona._ This is not his home and his family and the life he’d lived, and it never would be. _I will keep going._

_I hope to see you again._

And he runs and does not stop—and that, perhaps, is his undoing, he thinks when his hands and knees are bloody and dirty as a roughhousing child over roots and stone and darkness.

The Book is left, abandoned, at the bottom of a great oak tree, and the black wolves go on to find more filling prey.


	20. on art

**shine**   
  
_Cellach._  
  
That voice. He knows that voice.   
  
"Aidan?"  
  
 _I'm here, Cellach. The Angel of Darkness--well. Let's say there are some surprises in Heaven, shall we?_  
  
"...I'm dead?"  
  
 _Not quite. Almost. Look--Brendan will be fine. Kells will welcome him, and the Book will survive for longer than even I would have believed._  
  
"But I--I haven't seen him in so many years--"  
  
 _Do you have anything else to say to him, Cellach?_  
  
"I...I've made my apologies."  
  
 _And he's showing you the Book. You've said and you've seen what matters. Come now, Cellach. I promise you'll see him again._  
  
Cellach falls into the beautiful designs within the Book, paces along the whorls and knots and watches the flowers bloom in front of his face, watches Brendan young and Brendan adult and Brendan old watching him with a serious but glad look upon his face.  
  
In the end Cellach finds Aidan with his arms held open wide, and the shining light pulls them home.  
  
 **leaf**   
  
Leaves are not overly complicated or exciting to draw, some would say. Brendan can't agree. It could simply be because they mean a lot to him.  
  
A leaf is green; a leaf is Aidan, showing him how to make ink, showing him to draw, showing him what his imagination can do.  
  
A leaf is the forest; a leaf is Aisling, showing him the miracles of life within the trees, showing him beauty, showing him how to be brave.  
  
Every leaf he draws is a tribute to them, and so drawing a leaf is his most favorite thing in the world.  
  
 **wither**   
  
The inked Eye, the symbol of Crom Cruach, pressed from Brendan's palm to hers.  
  
Symbols, especially those of gods, have power.  
  
It seeped into her hand, her body, her mind in an instant. Not obtrusively enough for her to notice. Just enough to infulence her. Just enough to make the the words the boy said more important to than they really were.  
  
"The Book will never be complete."  
  
The Book. His art really was beautiful, wasn't it?   
  
(Crom lived through art, through drawings on the walls of the Mound, designs etched in stone and blood.)  
  
"The Book?" Chalk vines that were so, so beautiful unfurled in her mind. Wouldn't it be a _tragedy_ if they would never be any more than that? something whispered.   
  
Looking into Brendan's ernest face, her resolve to keep away withered.  
  
"...Alright then. I will help you."  
  



End file.
